Problems With Direct TV

So in the beginning of the year my wife and I's contract with Charter cable company expired. This gave us a great opportunity to search for other providers for internet and cable tv. We called around and found a pretty good bundle with DirectTv (obviously for television) and AT&T for internet. We signed a 2 year agreement that DirectTV would provide us cable TV and AT&T would give us awesomely fast internet, all for a great bundled price.
The first month everything went fine, our bill came bundled and both services were outstanding. The second month came and we received two different bills for two different amounts. No big deal, we called Direct TV and informed them of the error and the customer service associate assured us they had taken care of it and the following month we would receive a bundled bill. Like clockwork, the following month we would receive two bills from each company and we would have to call DirectTV. Each time the customer assistant person assured us that the problem was taken care of and the next month we would receive our bundle. Each time the customer experience was different, some days we had a great customer service assistant and things went smoothly. Other times we had to call back 3 or 4 different times because they would hang up on us. Fast forward until July, we were still have problems with DirectTV bundle agreement when my company transferred me overseas. We called DirectTV and informed them we were going to cut off our service with them.

They informed us that we were subject to cancellation fees because we signed a contract with them. I asked them why should we be upheld to a legal obligation when THEY were the one who did not fulfill their agreements?

Case is still pending. I believe that DirectTV will do the right thing and drop all cancellation fees. This thread is being forwarded to them.

Spark Notes: Wife and I signed a bundle with Direct TV, who didn't fulfill their side of the deal, we went to cancel and are subject to cancellation fees.

We've had directv for years and never had a problem with them. No I do have to admit when we first signed on, they wanted us to bundle and ATT was supposed to be the ones handling the bundling. When we called ATT they admitted they had a bundling program in place but we had to call Directv to get the satellite system in place. Directv wanted then a confirmation from ATT that we had a bundle contract. Long story short, we go so much run around between the two and neither knew who was responsible for what, we just got them separate.

You are naieve if you believe they will drop the cancellation fees. There is no clause in any of their contracts allow anyone to penalize them for non-performance. The worst they can do is put a marker against your credit report for seven years, and that's is nothing. Just don't pay their bill. Never sign any contract with these people unless there is a clause allowing cancellation without penalty usually after 30 days notice. They don't like it, but you're the buyer!

No problems with Direct TV, but we have had problems with ATT and cancelation fees. By signing a two year contract, we got a lower monthly rate for the church phone. Due to lower income at the church, we decided to cancel the phone service and drop the dial-a-devotion we had there. ATT forced the church to pay cancelation fees that ammounted to the amount they had reduced the phone bill from the beginning of the contract to the time we cancelled it, or pay the reduced bill for the remainder of the contract. It was around $250, which was a real burden -
The church didn't have it, but Judy and I paid the bill so the church would not have a black mark on it's record.

In July, I got a reduced home ATT bill by bundling with our Direct TV here.
In august, we got the lower bill.
In September, the bill had gone back up, and when I called them they said the bundle did not "go through", and they would process the change again -
I sincerely hope I do not have the continuing trouble you did!!

Singed up years ago with Direct TV. About three months into the contract, we lost signal. I contacted Direct TV, and they informed me that they were in another state, and could not help me. They said to call the installers. The installers told me that they don't do repair work, they just install! So we stopped payment. We then got a hit on our credit card, which is required by the contract, for a $500 fee, breach of contract on our part. We talked to everybody, the card company, and Direct TV, the BBB, and anyone that we thought might help. After about a year of dealing with these thieves, we came to an agreement. I pulled the module on the dish, and mailed it back to Direct TV. They in turn removed the $500 charge to our credit card. As soon as my contract runs out with Verizon, I will drop them, and go with one of the other companies that don't have contracts. So far Verizon has resolved all problems, but when you have a contract, then the company you have that contarct with always has the upper hand.

I know this is going to sound kinda extreme to some folks, but after going through all sorts of hoops with cable, satellite, and some sort of deal with the phone company, and getting garbage service from all of them, we got rid of the TV. While we could afford the package deals, they were expensive and the service just plain awful. So, we figured if we're going to get consistently horrible service, let's just get the basic package. Well, that gave us programs like the Best of Bulgarian Cooking - in Bulgarian, the care and feeding of tarantulas, breaking news from Crapistan, etc. Of course I'm kidding about the titles, but I think you get the picture. For movies and the like we signed up with Netflix. Live streaming news we get from Fox through the computer or on the radio (remember those things?). Called the satellite company and told them to come pick up their dishes. They didn't want them, so we're using one as a birdbath, and I think the lady of the house intends turning the other into a planter of some sort.

I built an antenna out of coat hangers from Walmart, a 2x4 and a cable adapter, the wife gets four or five stations on that, then I got netflix, she watches it on the tv through the Wii or on my computer. I don't miss the $60 a month cable bill for 90% channels I never watched a bit. We have the $19.99 a month internet through Charter, when the year promo is up we may change yet again.

The Netflix / Wii setup is great, and NO commercials. Before giving up on the cable and satellite and such and going to Netflix, we timed the commercials. They averaged about 17 minutes out of every 60, and we were paying for it!

We did the Dtv bundle with verizon. It was hell for 4 or 5 months. I just got rid of DSL and directv and went to comcast for high speed internet phone and cable. The Cable is just an afterthought. I have built a kick butt Home Theater PC.

You are naieve if you believe they will drop the cancellation fees. There is no clause in any of their contracts allow anyone to penalize them for non-performance. The worst they can do is put a marker against your credit report for seven years, and that's is nothing. Just don't pay their bill. Never sign any contract with these people unless there is a clause allowing cancellation without penalty usually after 30 days notice. They don't like it, but you're the buyer!

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Given that your credit score can affect a lot of things like employment, interest rates you pay, etc..., I'm curious as to how you think this is "nothing". And DirecTV can, and will, send people to collections for their cancellation fees.

To the OP, the contract you signed basically stated that DirecTV can change the terms and conditions any time they like. If you don't accept the new terms, then you can cancel but it clearly states that you would be subject to early termination fees.

While I'd like to think that DirecTV would do the right thing, I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you. If you check the forums over at satelliteguys.us, you will see hundreds of threads where people have thought that DirecTV should let them out of their contract. Very few actually were.

I built an antenna out of coat hangers from Walmart, a 2x4 and a cable adapter, the wife gets four or five stations on that, then I got netflix, she watches it on the tv through the Wii or on my computer. I don't miss the $60 a month cable bill for 90% channels I never watched a bit. We have the $19.99 a month internet through Charter, when the year promo is up we may change yet again.

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Out where we live - a few channels over the air - nothing more. Will not pay Direct TV or any other pay television company for that matter. I have the net and I'm a computer engineer. 99 channels? What the hell would I use them for? I don't have that much free time to watch TV.

My advice: Cancel immediately. You will probably get stuck with one more month of payments. Make sure that when you cancel that you do it both over the phone AND in writing with a letter requiring a return receipt. I am the computer repair company in this sparsely populated area in Idaho. Some of my customers have cancelled then, get a new bill and get told "Oh, we never received your cancellation". The same thing happens with Wild Blue.

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